SOUTHPORT is a golfing town - a status never more in evidence than when it hosts The British Open.
Yet despite many aficionados regarding Royal Birkdale as the finest championship course, its addition to the circuit is relatively recent.
Royal Birkdale Golf Club first hosted The Open in 1954 and this week marks the ninth time the tournament has been held on the greens and fairways nestled amid the sand dunes of the Sefton coast.
The golfing highlights of those championships have been many - from the Australian legend Peter Thomson corr winning the first of his five Open titles in 1954 to the then 17-year-old UK amateur Justin Rose coming an amazing fourth in 1998.

British teenage sensation Justin Rose in action on the third round of the 1998 Open

Yet while a golfing feast is always guaranteed, the weather has not proved so certain.
In 1976, spectators basked beneath raging sunshine as the American Johnny Miller triumphed over an initially unknown Spanish teenager named Severiano 'Seve' Ballesteros.
But the heavens opened during the last two Opens at Royal Birkdale, in 1991 and 1998.
Phil Todd found that out to his cost in 1991, when as an eager 19-year-old entrepreneur he bought about a hundred cardboard periscopes to sell to spectators seeking an even better view of the action.
"It started teeming down with rain and they all went soggy," remembered Phil, who lives in Scarisbrick and works as children's entertainer Tricky.

Umbrellas were opened at Royal Birkdale in 1998

Phil and a friend bought a cache of golfing umbrellas in advance of this week's Open, in the expectation of turning a profit if the rain returns.
Churchtown resident Harold Brough is golf correspondent for the Liverpool Daily Post, a sister paper of the Southport Visiter.
He told LookBack of two anecdotes he had gleaned from a retiring former secretary of Royal Birkdale Golf Club.
The setting for the first was the 1971 Open and concerned the tournament's winner Lee Trevino, who was brought up in a run-down shack on the outskirts of Dallas.

Lee Trevino waits for a ruling at Royal Birkdale in 1971

Trevino was on a practice round, standing on the 18th tee which looks up on to Waterloo Road and its famous Round House, and was deciding where best to aim his shot.
Harold recounted: "The story goes that Lee Trevino asked his caddy, 'What's the line in from here?'.
"The caddy said that it was the Round House, and Lee Trevino replied, 'I know, but which window in the Round House?'"
The star in the second anecdote was the victor in the 1991 Open at Royal Birkdale, the Australian Ian Baker- Finch.

Ian Baker-Finch with his daughter Hayley after winning the 1991 Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale

Harold said: "When Ian Baker-Finch won he was well remembered for a lovely picture of him holding the Claret Jug with his daughter.
"Of all the people who faded from the Championship scene I don't think anyone faded as quickly as him - he just vanished out of sight, although he did become a commentator for Australian TV at one time.
"He was obviously thinking of his very sudden and dramatic collapse from being number one in the world when he was at Royal Birkdale on one of his return visits.
"He said to the club secretary, 'What locker was I in [in 1991]?' and the secretary replied with the number and asked, 'Why do you want to know, Ian?'
"Well," he said, "I think I left my golf swing in there!'"

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